


Baby vs Bladder

by neversaydie



Series: Baby Makes Three [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Babies, Dad Stucky, Kid Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Parenthood, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleep Deprivation, Steve and Bucky have a baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6471442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Steve, c'mon and take her."</p><p>"If you move her now she's just gonna start crying again."</p><p>"Well if I don't move her I'm gonna piss myself." Bucky is definitely squirming where he stands now, trying not to jostle the baby too much while still keeping control of his bladder. "No, I'm gonna come over there and piss on you. Because my own fuckin' husband <i>abandoned me</i> in my hour of need."</p><p>[Bucky and Steve have a baby, series of one-shots]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby vs Bladder

"Steve, c'mon and take her."

"If you move her now she's just gonna start crying again."

"Well if I _don't_ move her I'm gonna piss myself." Bucky is definitely squirming where he stands now, trying not to jostle the baby too much while still keeping control of his bladder. "No, I'm gonna come over there and piss on you. Because my own fuckin' husband _abandoned me_ in my hour of need."

"Okay, alright. Hang on." Steve puts his Starkpad down on the kitchen counter and comes over to take the baby. It's not like he _wants_ to put all the pressure on Bucky tonight, but if he doesn't get this report done then the whole team is going to get dressed down by Hill. Again.

Sarah stirs and whimpers when Bucky tries to hand her over, and they both freeze instinctively until she settles down again. Bucky looks like he might cry at this point, because the baby is teething and fussy and this is the closest she's been to going down and staying there for three or four days now. They've both done sleep deprivation on ops, sure, but it was never as stressful as being woken every fifteen minutes by a baby in pain. It's times like this that Bucky starts to doubt himself, feel he's two steps away from fucking everything up entirely, and Steve can see the desperation getting to breaking point if he doesn't figure out how to intervene.

"Alright, c'mon. We're doing this old school." He puts his hands on Bucky's waist and shepherds him to the bathroom, baby still held to his chest and finally starting to drop off with the steady movement. "Remember when I had the flu in '35 and I couldn't even sit up? Payback time."

"Jesus." Bucky laughs, weary and slightly hysterical as Steve parks him in front of the toilet and stands behind him to unzip his pants. "This isn't what I pictured fatherhood being like."

"Yeah, well. Nothing ever turned out like we thought it would." Steve pulls him out and peeks over his shoulder to check the angle. They've done way more intimate things than hold each other's dicks to piss, but it's the first time he's returned the favour quite like this. "Alright, let it go. Don't make me sing Frozen at you."

"I swear to fuckin' god." Bucky grumbles, closing his eyes and having to concentrate for a few seconds before he can finally start a stream. The groan of relief isn't even slightly exaggerated, he's needed to piss since he started trying to put Sarah down an hour ago. "Fuck. I love you."

"So romantic." Steve snorts a laugh into Bucky's neck and presses a kiss behind his ear, breathing in the slightly tacky skin because he hasn't been able to leave Sarah long enough to take a shower for a few days.

The rest of the team who weren't on mission with Steve started staying away from about day three, when the dark circles and murder face were well and truly entrenched and starting to make Bucky threatening enough that even Sam left his mom's casserole at the door rather than come in and risk waking the baby up. It's not the first stretch he's done alone with the baby, but it's the first when she's been cranky and refusing to cooperate and showering would have been far down his list of priorities even if he had people to be presentable for.  

Steve doesn't count as people. They've seen each other much worse than unshowered.

"The magic is well and truly gone." It takes at least a solid thirty seconds for Bucky to finally finish pissing, and Steve tries not to laugh when he huffs out a sigh at how long he's standing there with his dick in the breeze. "That's it, we won't have sex anymore."

"That's a damn lie and you know it." Steve shakes him off and tucks him back into his pants, and Bucky lets his head fall back on his husband's shoulder for a second before the change in position makes Sarah stir. Then he's up again with a rough inhale like he'd been about to fall asleep, and Steve kisses his temple sympathetically. "Go sit down if she won't lie down, I'll wash up."

"Can you make her a bottle?" Bucky shifts the baby from his numb flesh arm to his metal one when it's clear she's going to wake all the way up again. "Maybe if I stick something in her mouth she'll calm down."

"She gets that from you." He gets the finger while Bucky shakes the pins and needles out of his fizzing flesh arm, which is a pretty good sign because it means he's not stretched too thin to take the joke. The threat of reaching breaking point is a low hum of anxiety over them both, slowly decreasing the longer they get from having seen it up close.

They'd only reached that point once in the six months since Sarah was born, when work-related sleep deprivation collided with baby-related lack of sleep and stress, and they'd ended up in a screaming match that triggered a full-on relapse into Bucky's programming. Five days in a secure ward and the episode passed, leaving Bucky furious about the situation they'd got into and demanding to see his family and go the fuck home. They're more careful about striking a balance now, working out how to keep things on an even keel without putting too much pressure on either of them.

The world has had to cope without Captain America since the episode, this op being his first tentative foray back into the field. Bucky had been the one nervous to be left, but he'd handled it and they've reached the other side with him exhausted but still in one piece with his mind fully intact. Steve sends up a silent prayer to his mom as he gets a bottle together for the now-fussing baby, because he's pretty sure she's been watching over their cobbled-together little unit for things to be going so well. He needs the luck, doesn't have the muscle memory of siblings to be a natural parent like Bucky, but he thinks he's getting the hang of it.

Bucky's curled up with Sarah in their squishiest armchair, trying to smother a yawn without opening his mouth and failing just as hard as he always did when they were kids. He takes the slightly-warm bottle from Steve, twitching a tiny smile when his husband crouches down to run his finger over their daughter's soft, downy hair.

"You wanna feed her?"

"Yeah, I really do. But I've gotta finish this fuckin' report." Steve sighs quietly and sticks out his little finger so Sarah can grab it in her chubby fist as she sucks greedily on the bottle. "M'sorry I've been gone. I didn't mean to leave you on your own."

"It totally sucks. I'm not forgiving you." Bucky leans forward carefully to rest his head on Steve's shoulder without squashing Sarah, and lets his dry eyes slip closed because he just can't keep them open anymore. "Okay, it doesn't _totally_ suck. I love her more than I ever loved anything except… nah, I like her better than you, you rat bastard."

"Probably the first time you ever had good taste." He smiles weakly when Bucky headbutts his shoulder, just enough to chide him while staying appropriately still to not cause baby spit-up.

"I love being her dad, I do. But it's fuckin' hard. I never knew how hard this shit'd be. Somehow I never expected I wouldn't get to eat or take a piss when I needed to." There's no sound between them but sleepy sucking noises and the slow, half-heavy breathing Bucky always gets when he's trying hard to resist nodding off. "Wouldn't give it up, though. You're both stuck with me."

"Good thing too. Who else is gonna hold your dick?" Steve's smile is a little stronger this time, stomach squeezing with a weird mixture of guilt and affection when Bucky lifts his head. His husband looks totally exhausted and totally beautiful in the low light, too young for the fatigue behind his eyes as he pulls a strained smile back.

Yeah, breaking point is getting a bit too close for comfort. Steve isn't going to let it happen again, not when he's weighing up fighting for the cause and fighting for his family and there's only one choice he actually gives a shit about.

"Here, let me take her now she's calm." The surprise that momentarily flashes over Bucky's expression tells him it's definitely too soon to be off Avenging again when Bucky's grounded, and this was only ever a trial run back in the field so Steve doesn't even feel bad about calling it off for a while longer. "Grab a couple protein bars and go get some sleep, I'll get up with her tonight."

"What about your report?" It's barely an objection, only offered because Bucky knows how guilty Steve can get if he's allowed to run unchecked. But seeing the state of _almost_ state his family have got into while he's been gone has pretty much obliterated any obligation he feels to the team at the moment.

He's given everything to this country, this organisation he'd believed in, since he was just a kid. He figures it's about time he lets himself prioritise what really matters. The war might not ever be over, but it can wait.

"Fuck the report. Fury can suck me." Steve makes gentle grabby hands until Bucky hands Sarah over, a delicate transfer as she whines for the few seconds the bottle isn't in her mouth. Then she's cradled close to an even bigger, warmer chest and she settles down again. "I'm gonna take a few more weeks paternity leave. Unless the world ends, they can all fuck off for a while."

"Knew you were still there under that uniform." It's a half-meant remark that Bucky wouldn't say if he weren't already half asleep, but it doesn't sting like it might do if Steve didn't already feel like he'd lost himself in the obligations of an icon.

"Always, Buck. Nowhere near the end of the shit I'm gonna put you through." He rocks back on his heels and stands up carefully with Sarah held secure to give Bucky the space to get up, practically swaying as he starts to give in at the real opportunity of crashing. "Go sleep, you're dying on your feet."

"You're not gonna be nervous with her, or…?" Bucky still gives one last offer of taking over no matter how tired he is, that little spark of anxiety that tells Steve he's _definitely_ been away too long. More equal childcare is in their future, the Avengers can handle the rest of the world because Steve's officially stopped giving a fuck about anything outside this baby-smelling apartment.

"I'll be fine, babe. Sleep. Don't make me sit on you." He presses a kiss to Bucky's lips, only gentle but still enough force to nearly knock his sleep-deprived husband off his feet.

Bucky stumbles to the bedroom and Steve isn't surprised when he hears the _thump_ of him hitting the mattress – all bets are on face down and still in his clothes – and no movement after that. Sarah makes a disgruntled noise when she finishes the bottle and he grabs a muslin from the pile on the coffee table to put over his shoulder before he burps her. When he has a free hand he'll text Natasha or Tony or someone, let them know he's not filing the mission report in the morning and not coming back to the team for the foreseeable future. But right now his entire world is dim light and baby-powder smell and the sour of spilt milk and the soft sound of Bucky already snoring from across the apartment and he couldn't give a shit about telling anyone anything.

He's tired and he kind of needs to piss and he could do with a snack and some water, but it can all wait when his two favourite people are finally starting to relax and unwind after so many tense days cooped up and cranky. He kind of loves it when he gets a moment of clarity in the middle of this craziness, when he realises that he still has _Bucky_ and they're a _family_ now, baby makes three and all.

Sarah spits up on his shoulder and he looks to the ceiling for guidance as she starts to whine all over again. Bucky's snoring intensifies and his Starkpad starts chiming with notifications and Steve can't find the motivation to give a single fuck. He's home, safe and sound, and nothing else matters.

It's gonna be a long night, but he's done longer.


End file.
